By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – Meaningful moments, Memorable moments, Magical moments.
 
Darian Burns has learned to appreciate all of them.
 
Even if it's someone merely moving a mat for her.
 
At a time when all of the world is seemingly living moment to moment in the clutches of the coronavirus, the Seattle Pacific senior gymnast wants to take every opportunity to appreciate …
 
… everything.
 
 

"For me, it's really not taking little things for granted," Burns said. "It's hugging your friends and telling them you love them. In gymnastics, it's taking the time to think for a few minutes where you are and what you're doing and who you're surrounded by – and being really grateful."
 
Case in point:
 
During the second week of March, as the pandemic was spreading across the United States, sports events everywhere were canceled. For Burns and her Falcons teammates, that included the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation gymnastics championships and, subsequently, the USA Gymnastics Collegiate Championships.
 
Just like that, Burns' career as one of the best gymnasts ever to don a Seattle Pacific leotard – a career that included two national titles – was done.
 
"There were definitely tears and hugs and this kind of sadness," the 2020 Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association Division II Gymnast of the Year recalled of the moment when the team heard the news.
 
 

But even then, a ray of light flickered through. The Falcons were told they would have an intra-squad meet that upcoming Saturday to conclude the season. For Burns, that meant one final day of college gymnastics. An opportunity for one more practice beforehand.
 
Another reason to appreciate every moment.
 
"Once we came back on Saturday, I wanted it to feel like a real meet," Burns said. "I remember going to the bars and asking Zahra (Lawal, a former teammate and now the team manager) to slide my mat. I had to walk away from the bars right after that and I started tearing up – it was the last time Zahra was going to slide my mat. Then I got to the beam, and I got teary-eyed again. It was my last time on the beam."
 
Burns nevertheless pushed through it.
 
"I wanted to go all-out," she said. "It was the most beautiful thing.
 
"I couldn't have asked for more."
 
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE
After making the 2,600-mile recruiting trip from the Atlanta suburb of Decatur and ultimately deciding Seattle Pacific was the place for her, Burns arrived toward the end of summer in 2016, She got busy right away.
 
But getting busy was one thing.
 
Getting confident was quite another.
 
Yup, it's true: For all the success she has enjoyed, believing in herself didn't happen right away for Burns.
 
"The confidence that I lacked coming in – Carly (Dockendorf, then an SPU assistant coach) tried to get me to understand every single day at practice how much talent I had. So getting to that point and watching myself grow like that was unbelievable and beautiful."
 
Falcons head coach Sarah Jean Marshall couldn't agree more.
 
"That is definitely an area in which she grew and developed in four years," Marshall said, "which also helped her grow immensely as a leader in our program. A lot of that was really seeing other people believe in her abilities and having her team behind her."
 
QUEEN B, MEET QUEEN D
Just a few months after she arrived, Burns' moment was at hand. "Run the World" by Beyonce' was queued up on the music tablet.
 
Standing in front of the scoretable near the center of Brougham Pavilion on the final day of the 2017 USA Gymnastics Collegiate Championships, Burns saluted the judges. She took a few steps onto the blue-carpeted floor exercise surface, got down on her knees and interlocked her fingers behind her.
 
The high-flying freshman knew what was at stake. Brianna Comport from Bridgeport had led off the first half of the finals with a 9.900. The next eight performers couldn't match it.

 

Now, Burns was leading off the second half.
 
The music started, and Burns glided into action. She nailed her first tumbling run – one with so much difficulty and bonus credit that she would have to do only one more such run instead of the two more that most gymnasts would need. Then, she nailed her second run, danced back across the carpet and finished with a military style salute.
 
"She always has really big finishes and draws the crowd in," said senior teammate Lena Wirth, who was with Burns when they took their recruiting trip to SPU, and – ironically enough – remembered that "she was really shy when I met her."
 
Darian Burns? Shy?
 
Not anymore.
 
"She's always dancing. Every time you look over at her, she's dancing," Wirth said. "She always cheers people up when she's in the gym."
 
After her routine, Burns joined her teammates on the other side of the floor and waited for the score to flash. When it did:
 
9.900.
 
She was tied for first place with Comport. Then, eight performers later, when the closest anyone could come to her was 9.875 …
 
… Burns was a national champion.
 
Her routine to a tune from Queen B had helped her become Queen D.
 
"That was probably one of the most unbelievable things," Burns said as she looked back at the accomplishment. "If you had told me that was how it was going to end, you couldn't have paid me to believe that."
 
Added Marshall, "She has a big personality, and that has really helped her to especially show off on the floor and really get the crowd into it.
 
FOUR EVENTS … LET'S DO 'EM ALL
Burns was just getting started.
 
"Coming in, it's not that you don't expect yourself or the team to do great things," Burns said. "It's just that you can't know how things are going to work out."
 
They have worked out quite successfully.

 

As a sophomore in 2018, Burns put in the time and effort to raise the level of her balance beam routine, and became an all-arounder.
 
"It was a weird adjustment not feeling as if you had a moment to breathe at a meet – it was next event, next event, next event.
 
"But I love that I've been able to touch every piece of equipment and compete in every event nearly every meet of my life. It's definitely very rewarding."

Rewarding, indeed. By the end of that season, Burns was second all-around at nationals, just half a point from first.
 
"Being so close to the top and showing me how much potential I had – that was awesome,' Burns said.
 
At the 2019 nationals in Connecticut, the margin between first and second was much closer. Instead of being five-tenths of a point, was five-hundredths of a point.
 
But this time, Burns was in front. She racked up 39.225 to win the USAG crown and give the retiring Laurel Tindall her 31^st national champion athlete in 44 years as SPU's legendary head coach.
 
"I was very emotional the whole night, so it was just really a special moment for me and for Laurel and the team altogether," Burns said shortly after collecting her first-place medal. "I'm proud of myself and the team for giving her this last dance for her retirement."
 
IT'S THAT TIME
The last dance.
 
Burns knew that milestone event was coming up on her calendar this year.
 
"I felt like there was this pressure to top what I did before," she said. "I asked Kaytianna (McMillan, one of SPU's assistant coaches), 'How did you get through senior year with this pressure?' She just reminded us, 'You guys need to think of this as your celebration tour, your farewell tour. You've shown who you are as a gymnast, as a student, as a person. Just enjoy the ride and the competition.' "
 
Burns thought that ride would conclude at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, at USAG nationals in the middle of April.
 
Instead, because of the pandemic, it concluded in her own gym in Seattle in the middle of March.
 
And you know what?
 
At the end of the day, she was OK with it.

 
"There were lots of tears and emotions," Burns said. "But it was one of the most special moments of my career. It was great to kind of end it like that in our home gym with my last floor routine."
 
Certainly, she experienced other senior year moments leading up to that.
 
There was the early February road win at Air Force.
 
"From the bars, the very first event, I could tell it was going to be a great night – our energy was amazing," Burns said.
 
Then there was the balance beam.
 
"I don't think I've ever felt as confident on the beam as I did this year – that is 100 percent fact," Burns said. "I felt like I had control. Kaytianna did a great job. She knows how to instill that confidence."
 
Added Marshall, "She learned to work through some difficulties. And she just really dialed into the team environment and how much it meant to see success as a team rather than as an individual."
 
BUSY BEYOND THE GYM
Gymnastics might be done, but Burns still has plenty on her plate. A combination Urban Studies and Social Justice / Cultural Studies major, her interests range from affordable housing, to the impact of building design, to educational policy.

 

"I'm hoping to go into public policy, which is a nice combination of the two," said Burns, a 3.64 student who has collected numerous academic honors to go along with her multitude of athletic ones. "Urban studies is about how decisions are made, how buildings are built, Then I still have that desire to research how people are impacted and how culture is impacted and how minorities are impacted. That gets me really excited and passionate."

But Burns didn't rule out the possibility of trying a stunt or two somewhere down the road.
 
"I'm not going to hang up the grip strips forever," she said, adding with a laugh, "My goal is to be 50 and still do a back handstand."
 
A back handstand at 50. Well, if the opportunity is there … take it.
 
"You don't know what can happen tomorrow, or even the next hour," Burns said. "It's just being really grateful for what seems like little things."

Little things. Meaningful moments, Memorable moments. Even magical moments.
 
Darian Burns will appreciate all of them.